Editor's Note: With Hate Crimes legislation criminalising the moral viewpoints of Canadians and the passage of this anti-free speech Elections Gag Law by the ruling Liberals, the ability of opposition groups to this government to get their message out during elections has been seriously curtailed. The stranglehold on power by the Liberal establishment is at issue, and a free and democratic society should not have to function under such arbitrary and one-sided crippling limits placed on constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech. The landmark Supreme Court ruling reported below marked an other dark day for freedom in Canada.

Canada's Supreme Court Upholds Gag Law
Curbing Election Campaign Spending For Lobby Groups

May 18, 2004

OTTAWA - The Supreme Court of Canada, in a ruling laden with meaning for the coming federal election, has upheld one-sided legal limits on campaign spending by lobby groups. In a 6-3 judgement Tuesday, the court acknowledged that expenditure caps have the effect of limiting free speech.

But the majority said the harm is "minimal" and is justified in the wider interest of ensuring fairness between competing voices on the campaign trail. "I feel like there's been a death in the family," said Gerry Nicholls of the National Citizens' Coalition, the lobby group that challenged the limits. "This is a devastating ruling. It's bad for democracy, it's bad for freedom, it's bad for Canada."

The judgement marked the end of a four-year court battle - just as Prime Minister Paul Martin is poised to call an election for June 28. The ruling means any private group that wants to run ads supporting or opposing specific parties and candidates will face narrow ceilings on how much it can spend.

Nicholls vowed to continue the fight in the political arena and make the judgement a campaign issue. "What the Supreme Court has done today is to stab our democracy in the heart," he said. "We can't let it end here." He expressed hope that Conservative Leader Stephen Harper - who personally launched the court challenge when he headed the citizens' coalition - will repeal the spending limits if he takes power.

Harper, on a visit to Vancouver, chose his words carefully but indicated he would take action against "any limits that would unduly restrict" lobby groups from putting out a campaign message. "We will ensure that Canadians have the ability to express their views outside political parties," he said.

Aaron Freeman of Democracy Watch, an Ottawa-based group that backs campaign reform, hailed the decision as a victory for ordinary voters.

The governing Liberals seemed ready for a fight. "If they want to make this an election issue that's fine," said Senator David Smith, a veteran Grit strategist. Jacques Saada, the Liberal House leader in the Commons, rejected any notion of revisiting the rules. "The law as we have it has been fully upheld," he said.

At issue were provisions of the Canada Elections Act passed by the Liberals just before the 2000 election in an effort to limit the influence of campaign advertising by political advocacy groups. The rules limited lobby groups to spending $150,000 nationally and $3,000 in any one riding. [With more than three hundred federal ridings in Canada the effective spending limit is $500.00 per riding for national organizations. This is totally inadequate considering that a single newspaper add in a major national newspaper can cost $50,000.00. Official political parties are not subject to the same spending limitations, which gives the party in power a tremendous advantage due to fund raising advantages and the advantage of incumbency and of executive power.]

Opponents of the limits argued they violate freedom of speech, as well as other sections of the Charter of Rights dealing with freedom of association and voting rights. Defenders of the law said it was needed to keep Canada from following the United States down the path to wide-open campaign spending that would give the upper hand to wealthy private interests.

Justice Michel Bastarache, writing for the court majority, noted there is room for debate on which political model is best. But he said the "overarching objective" of the limits was to ensure campaign fairness [as defined by the liberal court], an aim that can only encourage public confidence in the electoral system.

Bastarache concluded the judiciary should defer to elected politicians and allow them wide latitude in such matters. "In the end the electoral system . . . reflects a political choice, the details of which are better left to Parliament."

Ironically, that is an argument usually made by Harper and other small-c conservatives who have often complained of unwarranted judicial activism in other cases.

Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin and Justice John Major, writing for the minority, agreed that spending limits of some kind may be justified. But they said the figures of $3,000 per riding and $150,000 nationally are too low to permit effective participation in a campaign.

The resulting infringement of free speech, they said, "far surpasses what is required to meet the perceived threat" that wealthy interests will dominate debate. They gave no indication of what limits they would consider more reasonable.

Federal political parties have long been subject to spending limits. Legal reforms enacted last year under Jean Chretien further curbed the money they can raise from corporations and well-heeled individuals.

Supporters of those reforms argued that if the limits came off lobby groups [such as pro-family organizations promoting healthy family values], wealthy donors would make an end run around the party rules and set up their own front organizations to influence elections.

Source: Excerpts from Canadian Press